Five reasons why your data science team is underperforming

By Colin Shaw

February 21, 2019

Data science requires your company to adopt a policy of intentionality. This is because it can be difficult to see the work product of data science and to understand the value it is providing. The intent of this article is to challenge you regarding your knowledge of your company’s relationship with data science through provocative statements and discussion.

1. Data science does not fit into the narrative of your company.

In order to be most effective, your company has to be a data science
native. The narrative of what your company does, and how it solves
problems must have tenets of data science at its core. In order to
achieve this, everyone in the company needs to understand and agree with
the value of data science as a means of achieving the company mission
and goals. Effective utilization of data science in your company is a
proactive strategy for propelling the company forward, rather than a
reactive strategy for catching up with the competition without a proper
strategic heading.

2. Your company lacks executive support for data science.

Your executive team needs to provide authentic support for data science in order for it to flourish. This means that your executive team must deeply understand and embrace the value proposition of data science as relates to the narrative of your company. However, deep understanding is not enough. Your leadership must also create space for data science within the organization. This means affecting the hearts and minds of everyone in the company to create a culture that is embracing of data science as a means to achieve the company mission and goals.

This also means making the right connections so that your data science team has access to domain knowledge and the proper tools and resources needed to accomplish well-defined objectives. Data science is much more than simply data scientists. It is also the local and cloud hardware, the larger infrastructure that makes deployment possible, integration with other software and teams, not to mention significant efforts spent identifying, organizing and engineering existing and new data sources.

3. Your company is not ready for a data science team.

In order for data science to be successful, your entire company has to be ready for your data science team. This means that your data science team needs to feel welcomed and valued as a meaningful part of the larger team—all of whom are focused on a shared mission with shared goals.

The existing teams need to understand the benefits of data science in the context of efficiently pursuing the mission and goals, and proactively reach out to help enculturate and integrate data science team members.

Positive communication should be reached as soon as possible to remove blockers from interdisciplinary work. It is of paramount importance for a successful data science team that it is well connected and has the authentic support it needs from every other part of the company.

4. You don’t have the right blend of data scientists.

Data
scientists are not all the same, but rather are as richly diverse as
any other group. Leveraging this diversity is important for building
effective teams. For example, data scientists interests and aptitudes
fall into research, engineering and reporting. You must understand what
your company needs and attempt to find data scientists who have ability
and interest in the same areas. Mismatches set you up for significant
challenges in getting solid results. This can be especially problematic
in companies that shift to data science by leveraging existing
analysts, as the expectations of the new role are significantly
different.

As with any field, data scientists are either more or less experienced. A team comprised entirely of inexperienced data scientists is less capable of intuition about problems and of producing results quickly. On the other hand, a team comprised entirely of well-seasoned data scientists may stagnate by not being aware of the newest practices in the field.

Understanding the career lifecycle and how this relates to the needs of your company is important in creating the right blend of data scientists on your team.

5. Your data science team is not operating efficiently.

Complacency
in the workplace can be devastating and results in a decrease in
operational efficiency. Data science teams can be susceptible to this
for a number of reasons. In companies where the leadership and other
teams are not knowledgeable about data science or are not embracing of
data science, it can be easy for data scientists—lacking direction,
vision and leadership—to fail to perform by hiding behind technological
hype and exploitation of the larger company’s ignorance.

Like
every other team in your company, data science should be focused on
executing against goals aligned with the company mission. The work
should be intentional and there should always be pragmatic candor
between data science teams and other teams regarding solving company
problems. There is no place in an effective data science team for
over-indexing on technological or role hype. There are no concepts in
data science that are inaccessible to anyone outside of data science;
your data scientists should be able to clearly explain what they are
doing in plain terms. This isn’t just for everyone else’s benefit; it is
important in technical fields to know the techniques well enough to
describe them simply. There is also no place for discussions about
one-liners as a means of solving problems. One-liners are a myth; there
is always significant engineering required to take data science to
production.

Your
data science team needs to stay ahead of the curve on technology and
technique. This is extremely important because new ideas often pay
significant dividends. However, you must be pragmatic regarding the
value of educational opportunities. For example, most conferences are
about networking and recruiting; it is much simpler to read the author’s
papers and directly communicate with them as a means of intentional
learning. It is important to keep your team focused on professional
development, but you must be practical about where the value comes from.

To recap, the success of data science in your company depends on the proper attitude and efforts across the entire organization. Without an appropriate company narrative, the right executive and company support, the right data science talent and the right focus on the achievement of well-defined company goals, it is often the case that the team will underperform. If you want to see your data science team flourish, you should spend some time considering these thoughts and what changes you can affect in your company.

Author

Colin Shaw

A senior machine learning engineer, Colin comes from an analytical background in computational math, physics, and programming. He was one of the first people to graduate Udacity's self-driving car program, and has code that runs on a Lincoln MKZ. At RevUnit, Colin helps identify solutions and implement them to help our customers work better.